In The TechRepublic.com article “The Beginning of the End of Google+” Adam Metz predicts that Google’s social networking effort may already be on its way out. He points to Amir Efrati’s February article in the Wall Street Journal where all of the most prominent social networking sites are listed by order of average minutes of use. Not surprisingly Facebook ranks number one with 405 minutes while tumblr has 89 and Twitter 21. Last on the list is Google+ with an average of only three minutes of use per session.

The New York Times joined the argument in support of Google saying that 50 million people (out of 100 million registered) with Google+ accounts use the network in conjunction with enhanced Google products. Metz points out that these products include the first and third most popular sites on the web: Google and Youtube.

According to Metz:

“Google is a fish out of water – they’re a great search and advertising company that is simply not good at making social media products used by consumers (or even B2B collaboration). Now’s the time to shutter Google+, and consign it to the dust-heap where many of their other social products lie (Jaiku, Google Buzz, and Google Wave to name a few), and allocate all that Google+ talent to doing what the company does best – selling a ton of advertising in a way that really resonates with its customers.”

While Metz makes a few salient points in his article we think this prediction is coming far too early. There are a number of Google apps besides the likes of Youtube that can also be enhanced in fascinating ways like their proven video chat feature. Google+ is purposefully a different experience than Facebook and the functionality—while different than that of the number one site—is being used by a growing number of registered users. To bolster growth Google needs to step up marketing for their network so the scores of people who do create accounts are made aware of what makes Google+ a unique and useful experience. That they have not yet seems very un-Google.

Benjamin Reilly, April 10, 2012